There are very few people who would not enjoy the convenience of an automatic garage door. The primary benefit is clear – the automation! No longer would you have to get out of your car and lift up a door manually!

There are other significant advantages to owning an automatic garage doors such as increased security both for you home and on a personal level. You will not longer have to leave you car on those dark nights and generally, after you press your remote control to open your garage door, courtesy lights will light up to allow you to see exactly what you are doing.

In most circumstance automatic garage doors can be installed with no problem. On occasions where there is limited headroom in your garage there may not be enough room to install the box that holds the roller mechanism. In these circumstances the box can come down into the opening though this may not be suitable when you need to get the maximum opening height for your garage.

One of the newer types of automatic garage doors do overcome this issue an they are known as Vertico doors due to the way the slats sit. Rather than running up and down the slats sit up vertically and the door slides to the side. You need to have a garage that is deep enough to accommodate the full opening width of the door plus the motor.

The great advantage of these sliding doors is the fact that the headroom required is so minimal allowing you to make the most of your full opening width.

The Vertico door runs on tracks both on the floor and the ceiling. If you have a power cut or if for any reason the motor does fail then you can quickly disengage the motor allowing you to manually open or close the door. The door is designed in such a way that even the lightest of presses will allow you to push the door in these circumstances.

The Vertico garage door is stylish in its appearance and it stands out as being unique in the garage door market place due to the way the slats look when standing vertically. If you are looking for a practical automatic garage door solution as well as a stylish one then the Vertico garage door may be the right choice for you!

Before the mid 1980s, electric (or automatic) garage doors didn’t have
safety features to prevent injury. Accidents, including those damaging
vehicles, were on the rise. Today, law requires all electric garage doors
and garage door openers to include safety features. The safety features are
intended to prevent entrapment. The most significant safety devices you can
have installed on your garage door are sensors. Sensors cause the garage
door to reverse before it comes into contact with any object.

DASMA (Door and Access System Manufacturers Association International) and
the CPSC (Consumer Products Safety Commission) have detailed many of the
important safety precautions:

. Don’t stand or walk under a moving garage door.
. Never allow children to play with garage door openers.
. Keep the garage door wall button control at least 5 feet from the
floor. Make sure the button is in a place where you can see the garage door.
. Don’t allow children to play under or near an open garage door.
. Inspect your garage door for proper safety features including:
tamper-resistant brackets, safety cables and sensors.
. Maintain your garage door. Conduct an annual inspection of your
garage do. Perform a reversal test to check that the garage door reverses
when it senses an object in its path.

Additional Garage Door Safety Tips

1. Don’t DIY. Garage door repairs and installation should be left to the
pros.

2. Follow your garage door manufacturer’s instructions for garage door use
and care.

3. Educate your children about garage door safety. Young children learn
their habits from their parents. Setting a good example of garage door
safety habits will help your children develop safe habits.

4. Tend to garage door problems. Changes in the functioning of your garage
door could indicate a problem. Check all changes promptly. Don’t ignore a
persistently squeaking garage door.

Marcy Tate is a blogger at Networx.com.
She has been writing about garage
doors for over a decade.

Obviously as well as security there is the convenience of not getting wet or cold. Simply press the remote control and you Roller Garage Door will be open for you by the time you get down your driveway.

With the current economic climate people are spending their money on improving their homes and as such, the entire Garage Door market is booming. however people are very price conscious and this had led to a new range of cheap Garage Doors that allow people on a budget to purchase.

If you are looking for a quality Roller Garage Door that is going to provide maximum security, last a long time, running smoothly and looking good then you really  need to avoid the cheaper markets all together. It the age old saying of “you get what you pay for” costs have to be cut from somewhere to offer these cheaper prices.

With many of the quality Roller Garage Doors offering promotions such as the Winter Sale now really is a good time to look at buying a garage door. With this increase in competition, the bigger players are now offering deals that provide discounts never seen before.

We all know that, in an ideal world, we would want to park our cars in a garage. This is not only for security but to protect our cars from the harsher weather conditions – not to mention the fact you will not have to scrape the ice off in the mornings!

In reality, most people who have a garage do not use it for putting their car in, instead they use it to store things they rarely use and this quickly becomes an unusable junk room that is rarely entered.

What is the reason for this? Well there are several but to name a few:

• A garage door can be heavy to operate
• They are not always quick to open
• Standing around in the cold or wet weather opening and closing your garage door is far from ideal
• There is the security aspect of being outside in dark conditions alone
• To get from your car into the warmth of your home is your number one priority

This is where the Electric Garage Door can be massively beneficial to overcome all of the above points.

• An Electric Garage Door takes no manual work at all, just a press of a remote control and it’s open
• Electric garage doors can be open by the time you reach your driveway thanks to remote control technology
• Drive straight into your garage and have the electric garage door closing before you even get out of your car
• The courtesy light of your electric garage door is already lit and stays so until you are in your house
• As quickly as parking on the driveway you are safely in your home, but your car is safe and secure thanks to your electric garage door

The above examples are just a few reasons why an electric garage door could be the solution for you. On top of these advantages there is the added benefit of adding value to your home, and the luxury and convenience that electric garage doors bring.

There are very few negatives with electric garage doors that some may be concerned with. They are very quiet in operation, require little or no maintenance and, ensuring a quality brand of electric garage door is chose, will be trouble free for a lifetime.

When you are in trouble with your garage door, perhaps it is stuck open, stuck closed or kind of collapsed, it is always in an evening or weekend when there is no one on the end of a phone to help you out. This can mean your car is stuck in the garage or your whole property is left unsecured which can be a huge issue.

Some roller garage doors will be fitted with a manual override motor or mechanism which may, or may not allow you to close or open the garage door dependent on where the problem lies.

Often the problem is very easy to overcome with the right help. Here are some of the most common roller garage door issue I regularly come up against, and how to solve them.

Problem 1 – Garage Door Stuck Open

This problem happens a lot and generally it is simple to resolve -  The main reason for this to occur is the garage door’s safety equipment. Often with a roller garage door, the safety system, for obvious reasons, will only be active when the door is closing. This means however,  if the safety system does have an issue, you can generally get you door open no problem,  but coming to close it is where the problem is highlighted.

Many garage doors pre 2006 will have been fitted with some kind of safety beam. Whilst the  design varies from manufacturer to manufacturer then principle is the same. There is a beam or set of beams fitted on either side of your garage door opening – these are generally around a foot up from the floor. An invisible beam, generally infra-red,  passes from one side to the other. If this beam is broken ie you are standing in the way the garage door will not close.

The most obvious reason why your garage door may be stuck open is the door thinks something is in the line of the safety beam. Check firstly that nothing is in the way of the line of the beams. If you have your car in the garage are you certain that it is in fully? Generally the beams sit slightly inside the opening so you have to ensure the boot is not breaking that beam.

Another reason these garage door beams fail is they get dirty with a build up of grime, or cobwebs appear on them. This can often result in the door thinking something is in the way. generally a damp cloth wiped over the beam or beams will solve this issue. I have always found that a damp cloth is necessary as often a build up or exhaust fumes can block the beam – a dry cloth or just wiping with your fingers is often not adequate.

It is a good idea to check with your manufacturer if there is away to bypass these beams. Often this can be a switch or bridge on the control box. handy if you accidentally knock one of the beams off with your car – saves the door being stuck open permanently!

Some garage door systems are fitted with a battery backup – it is all too easy to switch the power off to the garage door and be running the garage door on the backup system – this is fine until it runs down – check your fuse and check that someone hasn’t switched off the garage door power by accident – it is very easily done!

If you do have a battery backup system that is quite old, this can be a cause of a garage door problem. When the battery is requiring too much of the systems resources to charge it, it starts to pull down other vital parts of the system. Generally this can be easily resolved by turning the power off to your garage door, disconnecting the battery and turning the power back on with the battery disconnected. The garage door should begin to work after the second or third press of the button.

Next time I will be talking about if your garage door has come out of the guide channels or if your motor limits need resetting.

Different styles of garage doors have their advantages  and disadvantages. Without making the correct choice from the outset you may find that you do not have the space within your garage that you previously expected.

If you are looking for a slatted garage door then one of the three options I have listed below will suit your garage door needs.

Roller Garage Doors

Here is your typical roller garage door and by far the most popular choice – why? Well this door is a standard.  Hundreds are manufactured and sold every day by a whole number of different companies. When there is a lot of demand for garage doors the price goes down. This means that this is the most affordable option if you are considering a roller garage door.

Do not be fooled though – these can still set you back thousands of pounds depending on the quality of material used.

The issue with this type of door is the space required to fit it.  You need to ensure that you have adequate headroom to house the box the garage door rolls into – the grey section you can see in the picture.  This generally will sit up above the opening of the door, assuming you have space. If you do not then it will start taking up the space of the actual opening – this can mean, if you have a small garage and large car – you may be in trouble.

These garage door boxes generally come in two sizes. One is 300mm and one is 250mm – the 250mm can only be used up to a 2m height including the box – so anything bigger has to go in the 300mm box.

One other consideration to take into account with the roller garage doors are the guide channels. This is what the slats actually slide into.  They generally mount on  the inside return wall of your garage but if you do not have an internal return wall, or do not have one big enough then you stand to lose at least some of the width of the opening or your garage.  Generally the guide channels are either 90mm or 105mm per guide so check you have this space.

Horizontal Sliding Garage Doors


This garage door system is a less commonly found  garage door but can solve a lot of the problems that the standard roller garage door presents. Rather than the slats fitted horizontally they are positioned vertically. This allows the door to slide round to the side rather than up and down as the traditional roller garage door. This still gives a very pleasing look to the door and you do not have the issue of losing any headroom – great for those with smaller garage openings or limited headroom.

This type of garage door runs in small tracks and slides round one on the internal walls of your garage. Of course here you need to watch out for the internal depth of your garage as you need about 1 and a 1/2 times the depth of your garage compared to the opening size you want to achieve. Bear in mind these walls need to relatively clear -ie no internal doors etc

Not many companies that I have come across use these types of garage doors though I know some of the larger named companies do. Be prepared for a larger price tag though-  less common garage door, less commonly manufactured = more expensive.

Vertically Sliding Garage Doors

The final choice in our group of slatted garage doors is the vertically sliding door – as the name suggests it still goes up and down as per a roller door but rather than rolling it is pulled up on slides. This means that you save more headroom than the roller door due to the garage door not requiring a box to roll in. As per the previous garage door mentioned, you need to take the depth of the garage into consideration. The depth of your garage will need to be 1 and a 1/2 times as deep as the opening height of your door.

These doors give the same attractive look as the roller garage doors but they run slightly quieter and of course you save losing the head room. This is probably now one of the more rarer garage door types I have seen but again, the bigger garage door manufacturers do supply them although still an expensive choice.

Knowing what to look for in buying a garage door can be hard to work out. Prices can be for a could of hundred ££ or thousands of ££ for a similar end result – a garage door that opens and closes.

Of course one of the first factors that defines whether a garage door is cheaper or expensive is whether you opt for a manually operate garage door or decide to live the life of luxury and spend a little bit more for an automated garage door.

In my opinion, these days, if you are not looking to buy from the low low end of the garage door market then you would be wise to  consider automatic garage doors. These make a huge difference to your lives and increase value to your home as you no longer have to leave you car to open your garage door – great for personal security and safety as well as convenience. Not only this, the cost of having an automated garage door can be a little as £200 extra – when you consider you may be paying £1000 for a garage door in the first place, the extra 20% would be a wise investment.

Sow what are you options? Well There are many types of garage doors but the most popular by far are the stadard up and over style. These generally are manual but people do supply this style of door in an automatic fashion. The second is the roller garage door. This garage door is made up of individual slats and as well as being very secure when closed, they are also an extremely attractive choice in garage doors.

Of course both have their advantages and disadvantages and this is what I will talk more about next time.

Up until a couple of years ago the garage door market had several different key companies supplying and installing garage doors. Control boxes were often unique to the individual companies. Some included battery backups and alarm systems as well as the standard remote controls.

Most of these systems relied on quite an old technology for the safety aspect of the doors. Infra red beams or photo cells. These little devices were generally sat about 1 ft up from the floor of the garage door, in the opening. They send an invisible infra red beam from one side of the garage door, to the other. If the beam is on anyway broken – i.e the car is in the opening of the garage or someone is standing under the door – the door will not close. If the garage door is closing and the beam is broken, perhaps a cat or child is walking into the garage, then the door will stop and reverse.

Some beams only used a single box on the one side of the door and reflector to reflect the beam back to the unit. In my opinion these were not as good as the sender and receiver style I was refferring to above.

In fact, if you have an old roller door that is stuck open then check you do not have an obstruction – even a spiders web or dust or dirt on the lense can prevent the garage door from closing as the garage door thinks something is in the way. Genreally a damp cloth will resolve this.

Now, I have been discussing this in past tense because a couple of years ago new regulations came into force. These rergulations meant that any roller garage door would now have to use a pressure sensing bottom rail strip on the final slat of the door. Whilst, in my opinion, this is totally unnecessary as the beams did a good enough job here – it is now the law. This created a huge problem for manufacturers as it meant that somehow the bottom slat of the door would have to be connected to the control box.

In teh past this has been achieved with a curly cable, mainly on industrial doors. Who would want these ugly cables in their garage? And what’s more they are problematic and are likely to get tangled and result in the garage door no longer being able to close – great for security!!!

Well it seems to me now there is one key manufacturer of a system that most garage door companies seem to be using. I am reluctant to mention their name on this blog but if you really wanted to find out then just google it. I have been trying to search for an alternative for some time but it would seem they are the only competition about – they really have cornered a market.

What makes their system different is that they use the safety edge bottom rail on their garage door systems. This has a transmitter on the bottom slat that communicates, wire free, with the garage door control unit. If you are buying a garage door in the UK then you will almost certainly have this type of system installed.

As great as it sounds – it still comes with issues of it’s own.

To be continued……………………..

Basically an automated or automatic electric garage door allows you to open and close the garage door without putting in any effort. More often than not the garage door is operated via a remote control. This has many advantages. If it happens to be raining you can press the button as you approach your driveway. One you have reached your driveway the garage door is almost open and ready for you to drive in. Not only a great convenience but also reassurance for vulnerable people worried about getting out of their car on a dark winters night.

Automatic garage doors come in many varieties. You can have typical up and over garage doors. These are the common type of door on most people’s properties. They are generally not automated. The more common automatic garage doors that you will find are a slatted roller door. This means that the garage door is made up with a number of slats or panels slid together. As the garage door rolls up the slats fold onto one another and roll onto a large axle at the top of the door.

These garage doors are particularly attractive as well as providing maximum security for your garage and property.

One point to consider before buying a roller garage door is the head room required to fix the box up that the door rolls into. This is generally about 30cm x 30cm (12 inches). If you do not have much room above the opening of your garage door then this box will have to come down into the opening and be visible from the outside. Whilst this doesn’t usually cause an issue, if you have a particularly low garage opening or a particularly tall car you may find it is impractical to have this type of garage door installed.

Having said the above these roller garage doors can be fitted in three main ways – usually one of these methods will get over the problem listed above. The first and most popular method is what is known as an internal fit. With this method the garage door guide channels are installed on the inside of your garage and the main box up above the opening (assuming you have space) this gives the most attractive look as only the garage door slats are visible from the outside. The only negative with this type of installation is that you may lose a few inches from the depth of your garage so bear this in mind if you have a long vehicle or are already tight on space.

The next Method commonly used for installing roller garage doors is a reveal fit. This is where the door actually sits in the reveal of the opening. The full width of the guide channels are visible and the full 30cm box is visible. Of course it is important to note that the door opening will be reduced by the size of the two guide in width, and, the height reduced by the box size.

The final popular method of roller garage door installations is an external fit. This is identical to the internal fit in every way except the whole thing it turned around and mounted on the outside of the building. This is handy if you do not have the head room for an internal fit. The only dislike I have on these types of installations is the fact that you see the reverse of the slat from the outside. This doesn’t make that much difference but it is slightly more curved to allow for the garage door to roll up.

Garage doors like this vary a lot in price from manufacturer to manufacturer. There are a lot of different options to consider such as, will you need a manual override in case of a power failure? Essential if your house fuse box is in the garage. Options such as battery backups, alarms and much more are available and this is something I will be discussing more in the near future.

So a ballpark figure from an automated roller garage door – I would put this at approximately £1500 however this can vary greatly depending which company you choose and which features you require. If you do rely heavily on your garage door then I would suggest to scrimping on quality here as a breakdown can be most inconvenient at the best of times.